TechPowerUP NEWS

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ASUS today announced its participation at the NVIDIA GTC global AI conference, where it will showcase its solutions at booth #730. On show will be the apex of ASUS GPU server innovation, ESC NM1-E1 and ESC NM2-E1, powered by the NVIDIA MGX modular reference architecture, accelerating AI supercomputing to new heights. To help meet the increasing demands for generative AI, ASUS uses the latest technologies from NVIDIA, including the B200 Tensor Core GPU, the GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, and H200 NVL, to help deliver optimized AI server solutions to boost AI adoption across a wide range of industries.

To better support enterprises in establishing their own generative AI environments, ASUS offers an extensive lineup of servers, from entry-level to high-end GPU server solutions, plus a comprehensive range of liquid-cooled rack solutions, to meet diverse workloads. Additionally, by leveraging its MLPerf expertise, the ASUS team is pursuing excellence by optimizing hardware and software for large-language-model (LLM) training and inferencing and seamlessly integrating total AI solutions to meet the demanding landscape of AI supercomputing.
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Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing its latest portfolio to accelerate the deployment of generative AI. The Supermicro SuperCluster solutions provide foundational building blocks for the present and the future of large language model (LLM) infrastructure. The three powerful Supermicro SuperCluster solutions are now available for generative AI workloads. The 4U liquid-cooled systems or 8U air-cooled systems are purpose-built and designed for powerful LLM training performance, as well as large batch size and high-volume LLM inference. A third SuperCluster, with 1U air-cooled Supermicro NVIDIA MGX systems, is optimized for cloud-scale inference.

"In the era of AI, the unit of compute is now measured by clusters, not just the number of servers, and with our expanded global manufacturing capacity of 5,000 racks/month, we can deliver complete generative AI clusters to our customers faster than ever before," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "A 64-node cluster enables 512 NVIDIA HGX H200 GPUs with 72 TB of HBM3e through a couple of our scalable cluster building blocks with 400 Gb/s NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand and Spectrum-X Ethernet networking. Supermicro's SuperCluster solutions combined with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software are ideal for enterprise and cloud infrastructures to train today's LLMs with up to trillions of parameters. The interconnected GPUs, CPUs, memory, storage, and networking, when deployed across multiple nodes in racks, construct the foundation of today's AI. Supermicro's SuperCluster solutions provide foundational building blocks for rapidly evolving generative AI and LLMs."
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SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has begun volume production of HBM3E, the newest AI memory product with ultra-high performance, for supply to a customer from late March. The company made public its success with the HBM3E development just seven months ago. SK hynix being the first provider of HBM3E, a product with the best performing DRAM chips, extends its earlier success with HBM3. The company expects a successful volume production of HBM3E, along with its experiences also as the industry's first provider of HBM3, to help cement its leadership in the AI memory space.

In order to build a successful AI system that processes a huge amount of data quickly, a semiconductor package should be composed in a way that numerous AI processors and memories are multi-connected. Global big tech companies have been increasingly requiring stronger performance of AI semiconductor and SK hynix expects its HBM3E to be their optimal choice that meets such growing expectations.
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NVIDIA is bringing OpenUSD-based Omniverse enterprise digital twins to the Apple Vision Pro. Announced today at NVIDIA GTC, a new software framework built on Omniverse Cloud APIs, or application programming interfaces, lets developers easily send their Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) industrial scenes from their content creation applications to the NVIDIA Graphics Delivery Network (GDN), a global network of graphics-ready data centers that can stream advanced 3D experiences to Apple Vision Pro.

In a demo unveiled at the global AI conference, NVIDIA presented an interactive, physically accurate digital twin of a car streamed in full fidelity to Apple Vision Pro's high-resolution displays. The demo featured a designer wearing the Vision Pro, using a car configurator application developed by CGI studio Katana on the Omniverse platform. The designer toggles through paint and trim options and even enters the vehicle - leveraging the power of spatial computing by blending 3D photorealistic environments with the physical world.
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At GTC on Monday, Microsoft Corp. and NVIDIA expanded their longstanding collaboration with powerful new integrations that leverage the latest NVIDIA generative AI and Omniverse technologies across Microsoft Azure, Azure AI services, Microsoft Fabric and Microsoft 365.

"Together with NVIDIA, we are making the promise of AI real, helping to drive new benefits and productivity gains for people and organizations everywhere," said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. "From bringing the GB200 Grace Blackwell processor to Azure, to new integrations between DGX Cloud and Microsoft Fabric, the announcements we are making today will ensure customers have the most comprehensive platforms and tools across every layer of the Copilot stack, from silicon to software, to build their own breakthrough AI capability."

"AI is transforming our daily lives - opening up a world of new opportunities," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Through our collaboration with Microsoft, we're building a future that unlocks the promise of AI for customers, helping them deliver innovative solutions to the world."
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Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, and NVIDIA today announced that the new NVIDIA Blackwell GPU platform - unveiled by NVIDIA at GTC 2024 - is coming to AWS. AWS will offer the NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip and B100 Tensor Core GPUs, extending the companies' long standing strategic collaboration to deliver the most secure and advanced infrastructure, software, and services to help customers unlock new generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.

NVIDIA and AWS continue to bring together the best of their technologies, including NVIDIA's newest multi-node systems featuring the next-generation NVIDIA Blackwell platform and AI software, AWS's Nitro System and AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) advanced security, Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) petabit scale networking, and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) UltraCluster hyper-scale clustering. Together, they deliver the infrastructure and tools that enable customers to build and run real-time inference on multi-trillion parameter large language models (LLMs) faster, at massive scale, and at a lower cost than previous-generation NVIDIA GPUs on Amazon EC2.
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NVIDIA today announced a new wave of networking switches, the X800 series, designed for massive-scale AI. The world's first networking platforms capable of end-to-end 800 Gb/s throughput, NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand and NVIDIA Spectrum -X800 Ethernet push the boundaries of networking performance for computing and AI workloads. They feature software that further accelerates AI, cloud, data processing and HPC applications in every type of data center, including those that incorporate the newly released NVIDIA Blackwell architecture-based product lineup.

"NVIDIA Networking is central to the scalability of our AI supercomputing infrastructure," said Gilad Shainer, senior vice president of Networking at NVIDIA. "NVIDIA X800 switches are end-to-end networking platforms that enable us to achieve trillion-parameter-scale generative AI essential for new AI infrastructures."
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NVIDIA today announced its next-generation AI supercomputer—the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD powered by NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchips—for processing trillion-parameter models with constant uptime for superscale generative AI training and inference workloads.

Featuring a new, highly efficient, liquid-cooled rack-scale architecture, the new DGX SuperPOD is built with NVIDIA DGX GB200 systems and provides 11.5 exaflops of AI supercomputing at FP4 precision and 240 terabytes of fast memory—scaling to more with additional racks.
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Powering a new era of computing, NVIDIA today announced that the NVIDIA Blackwell platform has arrived—enabling organizations everywhere to build and run real-time generative AI on trillion-parameter large language models at up to 25x less cost and energy consumption than its predecessor.

The Blackwell GPU architecture features six transformative technologies for accelerated computing, which will help unlock breakthroughs in data processing, engineering simulation, electronic design automation, computer-aided drug design, quantum computing and generative AI—all emerging industry opportunities for NVIDIA.
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NVIDIA today announced that TSMC and Synopsys are going into production with NVIDIA's computational lithography platform to accelerate manufacturing and push the limits of physics for the next generation of advanced semiconductor chips. TSMC, the world's leading foundry, and Synopsys, the leader in silicon to systems design solutions, have integrated NVIDIA cuLitho with their software, manufacturing processes and systems to speed chip fabrication, and in the future support the latest-generation NVIDIA Blackwell architecture GPUs.

"Computational lithography is a cornerstone of chip manufacturing," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Our work on cuLitho, in partnership with TSMC and Synopsys, applies accelerated computing and generative AI to open new frontiers for semiconductor scaling." NVIDIA also introduced new generative AI algorithms that enhance cuLitho, a library for GPU-accelerated computational lithography, dramatically improving the semiconductor manufacturing process over current CPU-based methods.
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With Mods (short for modifications), you can tailor your gaming experience to your unique preferences. Uploaded by creators all over the world, you can pick between anything to create the city of your dreams. Along with Beach Properties, the first wave of Cities: Skylines II Modding will be available. The Beta release of Modding will initially support Map and Code mods. With the Map Editor, you can make maps with the Terraforming Tools you're used to, import hightmaps to create highly accurate depictions of your hometown, and upload your creations to Paradox Mods.

With the Code Tools, you can show off your coding skills and create Code Mods to meet your heart's desire! Future updates will improve on these tools and come to include support for Asset Mods. As we've talked about before, there will be updates to these tools that we are currently working on, and we will see some updates before the 1.0 release. We will be taking your opinion into consideration when we continue to work on the editor and are looking forward to seeing the feedback that you might have. If you're curious on what the process of Modding will look like you can already check it out on the Cities: Skylines II Wiki here.
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The International Data Corporation (IDC) has been tracking sales of Sony's PlayStation VR2 virtual reality headset since launch time (February 2023)—a new report claims that a backlog of unsold units has accumulated. Bloomberg's analysis of IDC data reveals that PS VR2 sales have consistently declined each quarter, despite promising early numbers—the publication alleges that Sony Group Corporation has paused production of its ($550 MSRP) PS VR2 headset: "until it clears a backlog of unsold units, according to people familiar with its plans, adding to doubts about the appeal of virtual reality gadgets." Anonymous industry moles reckon that manufacturing facilities have pumped out over two million examples since launch time. Sony is unlikely to admit, publicly, that it is having a tough time shifting its second generation virtual reality headset—Bloomberg's network of insiders believe that "stocks of the device are building up."

The lack of AAA content, developed exclusively for the PS VR2's ecosystem, is cited as big stumbling block—Bloomberg (alongside numerous publications) reckons that sales have suffered due to an absence of system-selling titles. Horizon: Call of the Mountain (2023) was an impactful launch title, but the headset's software portfolio contains a lot of "novelty" items, casual experiences and glorified tech demos (according to community feedback). Late last month, Sony admitted that it was exploring options beyond the VR2's normal mode of operation (PS5 acting as host): "We're pleased to share that we are currently testing the ability for PS VR2 players to access additional games on PC to offer even more game variety in addition to the PS VR2 titles available through PS5. We hope to make this support available in 2024, so stay tuned for more updates." This surprising announcement arrived mere days before the firing of (around) 900 PlayStation employees. Company leadership revealed that Firesprite's headcount would be reduced. This VR-oriented studio collaborated with Guerrilla Games on the development of Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Sony's London Studio will be closed down—its team had previously worked on PlayStation VR Worlds (2016) and Blood & Truth (2019)—compatible with Sony's first generation headset.

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GIGABYTE Technology and Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and an industry leader in enterprise solutions, will showcase their solutions at the GIGABYTE booth #1224 at NVIDIA GTC, a global AI developer conference running through March 21. This event will offer GIGABYTE the chance to connect with its valued partners and customers, and together explore what the future in computing holds.

The GIGABYTE booth will focus on GIGABYTE's enterprise products that demonstrate AI training and inference delivered by versatile computing platforms based on NVIDIA solutions, as well as direct liquid cooling (DLC) for improved compute density and energy efficiency. Also not to be missed at the NVIDIA booth is the MGX Pavilion, which features a rack of GIGABYTE servers for the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip architecture.
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SNK CORPORATION is proud to announce that FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves will be released in early 2025. SNK's beloved Fatal Fury series first hit the market in 1991, spearheading the fighting game boom of the 1990s that swept the industry thereafter. GAROU: MARK OF THE WOLVES (released in 1999) has, for some time, served as the franchise's most recent installment. But that is all about to change: 26 years on, a brand-new entry—FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves—is set to arrive on the scene!

FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves features a unique art style that stimulates the senses, an innovative REV system that supercharges the excitement, plus a host of other battle systems even more robust than before. The game also breathes new life into the series by introducing two distinct control schemes (ensuring fun and excitement for newcomers and veterans alike) as well as other fresh features and elements. The streets of South Town are a hotbed of action, wild dreams, and even wilder ambition. Here, at long last, a new legend is about to unfold…
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TSMC is experiencing unprecedented demand from AI chip customers—unnamed parties have (fancifully) requested the construction of entirely new fabrication facilities. Taiwan's leading semiconductor contract manufacturer seems to concentrating on "sensible" expansions, mainly in the area of CoWoS packaging output—according to an Economic Daily report, company leadership and local government were negotiating over the construction of four new advanced packaging plants. Insiders propose that plans have been revised—an investment in excess of 500 billion yuan ($16 billion) will enable the founding of six new CoWoS-focused facilities. TSMC is expected to make an official announcement next month—industry moles reckon that construction work will start in April. Two (of the six total) advanced packaging plants could become fully operational before the conclusion of 2024.

Lately, TSMC has initiated an ambitious recruitment drive—targeting around 6000 new workers. A touring entity is tasked with the attraction of "talents with high enthusiasm for semiconductors." The majority of new recruits are likely heading to new or expanded Taiwan-based facilities. The Economic Daily report proposes that Chiayi City's technological hub will play host to TSMC's new CoWoS packaging plants. A DigiTimes Asia news piece (from January) posited that TSMC leadership anticipates CoWoS output reaching 44,000 units by the end of 2024. This predicted tally could grow, thanks to the (rumored) activation of additional factories. CoWoS packaging is considered to be a vital aspect of AI accelerators—insiders believe that TSMC's latest investment will boost production of NVIDIA H100 GPUs. The combined output of six new CoWoS plants will assist greatly in the creation of next-gen B100 chips.

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